Baltic Proper

Air temperature; Cloud cover height and extent; Wind strength and direction; Zoobenthos taxonomic abundance; Zoobenthos taxonomy-related wet weight biomass per unit area of the bed

The project objectives are: - to follow long-term trends in soft-bottom macrobenthic communities regarding their species composition, abundance and biomass; - to identify changes in biological diversity; - to determine the range of the natural variation in the community. Taxonomical, zoogeographical information presents unique information to us, information which we cannot get by other, less work-intensive methods e.g. chemical analysis. Parameters and thereby identify the effects of non-natural impacts. The soft-bottom macrobenthic community has been monitored regularly since 1980, once a year in May in the Asko-Landsort area. The BIOMAD stored data series spans over 1972-1993. Besides the above mentioned site, the zoobenthos was monitored in the larger part of the Baltic Proper, once a year in May. The data were collected on cruises with a research vessel at 64 stations.

Cedervall, H. (1997) BIOMAD1.2. Baltic Proper Zoobenthos,

Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute
Folkborgsvagen 1
Norrkoping

SE-601 76
Sweden